My experience being on a TV show
Personal
Jan 17, 2024
I've made various projects that are useful for people in my Muslim community. So when this competition was announced, my friends and family encouraged me to apply. I was accepted and got to be on the show!
The show is similar to Dragons' Den/Shark Tank, where you pitch your idea to a panel of investors. If they like your idea, you go onto the next round and eventually win £10,000! If they don't like your idea, you leave with nothing.
My pitch
I went in to pitch two ideas. The first was 'ramadan.fun' - a daily trivia game that you can play with your friends and family during Ramadan. New questions would be released every day, and you would get points for answering correctly. The person with the most points at the end of the month would win a prize. This was inspired by Advent of Code, which is a similar concept but for programming during Christmas.
My other idea, which I've already released and had some traction with, is 'AskAyatollah.com'/'AskSistani.com' - this is an AI trained on the resources of Islamic scholars and can help answer questions quickly.
Preparation
Preparing for the show was pretty straightforward because they had provided pretty clear outlines for what they were looking for. I was also in a good position because I had already done a lot of the work for these projects. I just needed to make sure that I had a good pitch deck and that I could answer any questions they might have.
I made a short presentation for each idea where I explain what the project is, show a quick demo, and then talk about what the next steps would be for expanding these projects.
My intention going into the competition wasn't to win, but rather to get some exposure for my projects and some good feedback and advice from the judges. Luckily I don't really need the funding to run these projects.
The experience
The show was filmed in a studio in London. I was there for about 3 hours overall, but the actual pitch was only about 10 minutes. The rest of the time was spent waiting around and getting ready. I had a great time with the producers and film crew. It was really fun being behind the scenes and seeing how everything works on a TV show. I was surprised by how many people were involved in the production of the show but also how 'on the fly' some things were (mostly the B-roll footage).
It was great to also meet the people there, one of whom I knew from university and others I'd see around.
Aftermath
I pitched my project but didn't make it through to the next round, but I was really happy with how it went. Although their feedback/questions were anticipated, it was still really useful to hear them and get some validation for my ideas. I did expect them to have concerns about the AI project, which indicates to me they want some more institutional backing for it. I'm not sure I'm the right person to do that because I'm not really interested in the politics of it all. I just want to make something useful for people.
I'm going to continue working on these projects and see where they go!
PS
Although I didn't make it to the next round, they did reach out to me after a couple of days to tell me that for some reason I actually am going through to the next round. I suspect this might have been to the lack of other participants or someone else not being available, but I declined the offer. I'm happy with how it went and I don't think I would have done any better in the next round seeing as I didn't make it past this one.
Really looking forward for the episode to be released and watching it with friends/family :)